Entries in Pete Greig
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Image of Joan of Arc prayingThe video in my head of what I thought a powerful prayer life would look like? Picture Joan of Arc peering into Heaven with an angelic expression as a beam of light shines down from above. In reality, It’s me in the floor of my closet, still in my p.j’s, with hair in some sort of knot, and one of my robes thrown over my head. So romantic, eh?

But the truth remains that prayer—according to the Bible and saints who have rocked the world for God in ages past—is the most important ingredient of our walk with Christ. So why don’t we pray more?

No Time

I sooo understand how frazzled we get these days. I was speaking with a mom's group yesterday and one gal even had a t-shirt that read, "We Never Sleep!" Especially when we have tiny ones, the thought of ever getting enough sleep again is a pipe dream. However, as frazzled as we are, with family, job, etc, prayer is exactly what we need. Every day our multi-tasking and emergencies tax us to the limit. While we get to the end of our energy and resources so quickly, we can never get to the end of God’s. Scheduling that time with Him helps us get the priorities straight.

Don’t Know How

I get it. Prayer is intimidating. But here’s a fact to encourage you—there are NO experts in prayer. To say one is an expert means that person has a grasp on all facets of a particular subject. After praying every morning for more than 11 years, I can honestly say I still feel like a novice. However, I can also say I know God better, understand His love better, and trust Him more.

Prayer doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, if it’s complicated, your agenda is probably getting in the way. Jesus instructs his disciples to come to the Heavenly Father as children—simple, no deception, no agenda, trusting and humble. Think how kids have NO problem asking or even demanding something right after they’ve blown it! That’s trust. That’s a natural understanding of grace and the fact they know you love them even when they’ve screwed up. That’s how God wants us to come to Him.

But, it’s true we often don’t know how to pray as Jesus taught us, with confidence that Our Father in Heaven hears us and wants to give us good things.

Don’t Believe Prayer Works OR Prayer Doesn’t work FOR ME

We’ve all had those painful experiences in life where we bargained with God and pleaded with Him and things didn’t turn out the way we wanted. Here are principles we need to keep in mind when praying:

We don’t know everything and can’t see what God can see. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)

We live in a fallen world. There’s a lot involved in the bad things that happen—sickness, mean people, etc. because God has never taken away free will. For a really great discussion about unanswered prayer, grab Pete Greig's book God On Mute.

Don’t really want to

Sounds Boring: Prayer, at least from most of the examples we’ve heard, sounds pretty boring, eh? And if you’re not fully convinced it’s accomplishing anything, ya just feel foolish. Who wants to talk to a wall?

I want what I want: It’s often very hard to truly want “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done” when we’re really wanting “My kingdom come & My will be done.”

Mad at God: Sometimes we are holding a grudge against God and other people for the things we’ve suffered. Often those experiences scream louder in our ears than the truths of the Bible. Studies show this is usually the case for those who profess atheism. Life has hurt them and they blame God. “You didn’t show up? You didn’t STOP them from doing that to me? Then You must not exist—at least not as a God I want to have anything to do with!

Truth—You have Spiritual Enemies who don’t want you to pray

We don’t often talk about the devil and evil spiritual beings these days, even in Christian circles. However, if you can wrap your head around an all-loving God Who sent His son to die a vicious death in order to pay the price for us—there is also a reason God paid that horrible price. Because there is an enemy, an active intelligence who has an army of evil spiritual beings at his command, who wants us to stay separated from God. That’s a HUGE reason it’s so hard to pray. It’s also a huge reason why we should fight through any obstacle to have our time with God.

Also, from a mom's point-of-view, we are fighting a huge battle against the forces of darkness that want to screw up our kids. We have NO GREATER ADVOCATE in this fight than our Father in Heaven who wants to teach us how to shake the foundations of Hell as we pray.

What’s Your Reason For Not Praying?

All of these hurdles can be summed up in this statement—If we truly understood God’s character and the power available to us through prayer, wild horses could not keep us from it!

Try it. Commit to meet with God, same time every day, for at least 30 minutes for the next 30 days. You can even connect with our 30/30 Prayer group on Facebook or join with a few close friends for the journey.

An extraordinary story about the adventure of faith and the power of persevering prayer… On a summer’s day in 1727 a community of Moravians started praying and didn’t stop for more than 100 years. Throughout history God has mobilised such movements and moments of 24/7 prayer – from the Upper Room of Pentecost to Azusa Street in Los Angeles, through ancient Celtic saints and extraordinary characters like Alexander the Sleepless.This is the story of a movement of the Spirit in our time, a move as ancient as it is modern.

Servant of the King: Memoir of Modern Apostle Kemper Crabb by yours truly: 11 MILLION SALVATIONS. 1,800 CHURCHES. 400 ORPHANAGES. 17 RESURRECTIONS. 3-TIME NOBEL PEACE PRIZE NOMINEE. From the palaces of kings, to the slums of India, and to the belly of dungeon-like prisons, Kemper Crabb spreads salvation, love, and alleviation of suffering. It started with one suffering child. Armed Gurkhas would not let Kemper near the child for fear he would "alter Karma." The child died--frightened, alone, and unloved. Kemper cried out to God, "Why do You allow such suffering?" God gave Kemper a vision of the child sitting on Jesus' knee, but He gave the heartbroken missionary much more: a vision of how to relieve the spiritual and physical suffering of millions. Included: Kemper's Spiritual Warfare Training Handbook.

Chana Keefer is wife-of-one, mom-of-four and the best selling author of four with many more stories jockeying for position in her brain. She brakes for old barns, hot chocolate chip cookies and ANY version of Pride & Prejudice. Chana and her family reside in southern California but dream of touring New Zealand—on horses—with Peter Jackson as their personal guide.

Read them, recommend them, enjoy them with your book club, write reviews, loan them to friends, buy a box for a local crisis pregnancy, youth group or non-profit organization and, (Chana's favorite) read them aloud/discuss them with your family. Your heartfelt recommendations and reviews, dear reader, are my favorite and most effective publicity.

Groggily, I turned toward the glowing numbers across the room. 4:37. Ugh. I was running late. But my heavy, congested head had other ideas.
“Blow it off. You’re sick. Can’t you skip the routine just one day?”
Those arguments were convincing...